Science teacher Dan Molik from Palmdale Aerospace Academy talks about the science of NASA's SOFIA during an all night science flight over the US. (Photo by David Crane/Los Angeles Daily News)

NASA's SOFIA, Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, is readied for take-off from the Neil Armstrong Flight Center in Palmdale, CA. The modified 747SP has an opening in the rear to allow a 2.5-meter diameter reflecting telescope access to the sky. (Photo by David Crane/Los Angeles Daily News)

ABOARD SOFIA>> We are zipping through the night sky at 647 miles per hour, 43,000 feet somewhere above the Midwest and closing in on a stunning target far, far away: The Galactic Center, the sweet spot of the Milky Way Galaxy that contains a super massive black hole.

It’s a trip in a flying time machine, gazing back through the light years to when the universe was much, much younger.

There are 33 people aboard SOFIA, a modified Boeing 747 that carries a 38,000 pound, 100-inch diameter infrared telescope in her tail section. The flight was basically a NASA target shooting mission, aiming the telescope at Mars, a supernova, the Galactic Center and 12 other celestial points during a nearly 10-hour, high-altitude journey across America and back.

It is a special occasion for two passengers, Palmdale Aerospace Academy teachers Megan Tucker and Dan Molik, among 24 educators selected for NASA’s 2014 Astronomy Ambassadors class.

They flew the same target track on Monday night but the thrill of what they are experiencing is still with them.

“It’s amazing,” Tucker said. “We are actually seeing science happening. What we are looking at now kids are going to be reading about later.”

The first flight was a learning experience. There’s a slightly different vibe this time around.

“I can enjoy it more. The last one I was just trying to figure it all out,” Tucker said, indicating the computer equipment at their flight station, NASA’s Education Outreach Console located behind the science data reception and flight control stations.

As astronomy ambassadors, Tucker and Molik also received a graduate level astronomy course in preparation for the flight.

“We’ve got a huge learning curve,” Molik said as SOFIA closed in on the mission’s first target, Mars, which is used to calibrate the telescope. “But it is nice to finally figure out the nuts and bolts of the flight plan and put it together. Its kind of fun.”

SOFIA — NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy — has a heavy work load, typically two or more missions per week.

This is how SOFIA mission 2014-04-24 started:

We gathered for a flight briefing by Randy Grashuis, the mission director who decides what happens on the flight. He decides if we fly and where the plane will go.

One of the first things he says is that we will be carrying 250,000 pounds of fuel in addition to the telescope.

Then he takes us through the 10-page flight plan. It is broken into 15 legs, the takeoff, routes to targets and the landing.

Some of the scientists on board detail the regions of space we will be looking at and then Grashuis give us a rundown on the flight schedule with military precision.

We all head out the plane and load our gear, and then gather for a safety briefing by Phillip Wellgren, a NASA safety officer. The researchers strap into their seats at the work stations and the rest of us settle into a handful of first-class sized seats along the right side of the fuselage and some seats on the second deck.

The flight crew hits all of their marks and at 7:55 p.m. SOFIA roars down runway 25 and we lift off.

This is a high-tech data gathering machine but some low-tech methods are used with some of the equipment. A bank of computers are enclosed in a row of blue cabinets and technicians are constantly monitoring their temperature; some bring a floor fan into play to keep them cool.

The area above the computer bank is exposed and flight system hydraulic cables are seen. In the work section some interior panels have been removed and the yellow, plastic-wrapped insulation is visible.

The thrum of the four jet engines fills the cabin and by 8:50 p.m. we are at 39,000 feet at Leg 4, the calibration of the telescope with Mars. This is standard procedure on a SOFIA mission because Mars is a known, fixed position. It will take about 40 minutes.

It will soon get cold inside the plane and the NASA flight crew are wearing tan flight suits while most of the rest of us pull on jackets, gloves and hats.

SOFIA is hidden behind a massive blue bulkhead. A large silver instrument is attached to it. This is her companion, FiFi, which translates the infrared images into data that the scientists will eventually translate into images.

They have been together for a while. FiFi is the Field-Imaging Far-Infrared Line Spectrometer, a German device shipped to the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale in November 2013.

Together, they perform a complicated cosmic waltz.

But the concept is incredibly simple in the astronomy world of visible, short infrared and long infrared viewing of the heavens:

“Visible light telescopes show us the lamp shade. Short infrared telescopes show us the glass of the light bulb and long infrared telescopes show us the filament of the bulb and what it is composed of,” said Zaheer Ali, Sofia’s laboratory instruments manager at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Palmdale, in one of the pre-flight briefings.

Molik takes the analogy a step farther as it applies to his students.

“It’s not enough for the kids to know light comes through the lamp shade. They want to know why,” he said while sitting at the console monitoring data coming in from SOFIA’s first target — Mars.

Mission Director Grashuis is a veteran of 70 SOFIA missions. He received a degree in astrophysics from the University of New Mexico and ran earth-based observatories for 20 years.

“It’s an amazing experience. We’re 3,000 feet above the water vapor layer so the telescope has a great view,” he said.

The mission goal is time on target.

“We try to give the scientists 100 percent of the allotted time on target. If we do that on every target it’s a successful mission.”

They had a successful mission Monday night duplicated on this flight, Grashuis said Thursday morning.

Throughout the flight he communicates with the flight deck and the scientific team, to order course changes if needed. To view a point in space, the plane is moved, not the telescope.

After the calibration SOFIA soon loops west and south then back into northern California and then turns onto a northeast track.

By 11:45 Sofia is pointed at a recently exploding supernova near M82, the Cigar Galaxy.

It shows up on the computer screes as a spinning blue disk. It is so bright that it can be viewed from Earth on clear night using a pair of binoculars. Just look toward the Big Dipper.

We continue north to the top of Minnesota then south to southern Illinois then west for home.

SOFIA acquires the Galactic Center as we pass over Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma about 3:30 Thursday morning. The response from the SOFIA team is muted as they watch the data flow into the computers for later study.

The image on the computer screens is a rectangle made up of a series of squares adjacent to a dark area, which is the black hole.

Felix Rebell, an instrument scientist on the FiFi team says the instrument’s focus is the region next to the black hole.

It may tell us a lot, such as whether organic matter, and the seeds of life as we know it, are being created.

“We want to see what (chemical) elements are out there and what state they are in, the pressure, and the temperature,” he said. “It can tell us what the dust clouds are made of.”